The 4̶9̶ 50 best educational websites and apps to learn new stuff for free

Once upon a time, if you wanted to learn something, you had to a) pay a bunch of money, and b) go to a school or classroom, a place specifically dedicated to learning. Those days are over.

Now, a profusion of apps, websites and institutions offer us a wider variety of (often superior) educational experiences than ever before- and we can access them from anywhere in the world, often for free. The apps and websites on this list can teach you practically anything- from coding and cooking, to surfing and negotiating.

In this day and age, there is simply no excuse to not know something you’d like to know. You can learn anything, for free, at your own pace, anywhere you can access the internet. We’re out of excuses not to educate ourselves- short of downloading knowledge directly into your head, this is as easy as it gets.

2019 Update: Finally, I want to give a special shout-out to the Medium network itself.

When I originally wrote this article, Medium was dominated by “inspirational” articles that were short on truly usable information. 90% of the articles on here fell into a few narrow categories, particularly tech and startup stuff. Since then, Medium has improved both the quality and variety of its content. With that in mind, here are a few writers worth following.

Me, John Fawkes. I mostly write health and fitness stuff, but I’ve also delves into life advice, nootropics, travel, and Dungeons and Dragons.